Creed Taylor

Creed Taylor (born May 13, 1929) is an American record producer, best known for his work with CTI Records, which he founded in 1968. His career also included work at Bethlehem Records, ABC-Paramount, Verve, and A&M Records. He is widely acknowledged for bringing major bossa nova talent from Brazil (Antonio Carlos Jobim, Eumir Deodato, João and Astrud Gilberto, among others) to record in the U.S. in the 1960s.

Taylor was born and spent his childhood in Bedford, Virginia, where he played trumpet in the high school marching band and symphony orchestra. Although he grew up surrounded by country music and bluegrass, he gravitated more toward the sounds of jazz, citing Dizzy Gillespie as a source of inspiration during his high school years. Taylor recalls spending many evenings beside a small radio, listening to Symphony Sid's live broadcasts from Birdland in New York City.

After high school, Taylor completed an undergraduate degree in psychology from Duke University in 1951 while actively performing with the student jazz ensembles the Duke Ambassadors and the Five Dukes. Taylor credits Duke’s strong tradition of student-led jazz ensembles, and Les Brown's association with Duke in particular, as initially drawing him to the university. As he recalls, "The reason I went to Duke was from hearing Les Brown and all the history of the bands who went through Duke. This was really a great jazz band, . . . and the book was handed down from one class to the next, you had to audition and all the best players who came to Duke got in the band. . . . I had a ball when I was there." After graduating from Duke, Taylor spent two years in the Marines before returning to Duke for a year of graduate study.

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